'We are all poets'

Retired IUSB professor devotes life to writing.

Retired IUSB professor devotes life to writing.

August 01, 2006

Eleodoro Febres is an enigmatic poet. He shapes conversation the way he shapes a poem: leaving you to make out words that appear vague but are meant as subtle insights into his thinking, his vision of the world. "You know what they say, you already know this, we are all poets," he told me recently in his Granger home. Honestly, no, Mr. Febres, I didn't know I was a poet. But I didn't ask him right away what he meant by it, having only met him. Febres was born in a small Peruvian town with two main roads forming a cross. The town, Pampacolca, was built near a lagoon in a quiet valley where 7,000 people, many of them farmers, gaze at the perpetually snow-capped Coropuna volcano. I asked Febres, who left his homeland at a young age to study theology in Massachusetts, if his poetry was Peruvian or American. "It's a mix," he replied. "I think it's more universal." The National University of San Agustín de Arequipa in Peru published both of Febres' books of poetry, one of which was translated into English by Joseph Chaney, a professor of literature at Indiana University South Bend. The first of his books, published in 1999, is "Voces y Gritos del Corazón" ("Voices and Cries of the Heart"). The second one is "Heraldic Cries of Survival," published in 2001 in a bilingual edition. The themes Febres writes into poetry do seem universal: life, death, love, freedom. "I look for things that unite all of us -- love is one of those things, freedom is another one. Without freedom there is no explanation for the existence of the world, and freedom is the greatest thing we have," he said. But I really wanted to know where his poetry came from. Who were his influences? Is his verse rooted in the wheat and corn fields of southern Peru (OK, now I'm getting poetic) or in the bustling American cities where he later asked his students to ponder the quizzical declarations of Don Quixote? "I learned through my lectures, my own thinking, through nature, everything," he replied. Pablo Ros Voces Latinas Pablo Ros writes a weekly feature for The Tribune. Later, he added, recalling his teaching at IUSB, "The best professor is the student." I asked Febres about "The Volcano," a poem in his second collection. Arequipa, the department or state where Febres was born, is a land of volcanoes with indigenous, poetic names: Misti, Chachani, Ampato, Mismi, Solimana, Coropuna. To Febres, the volcano represents "the secret of many things. We don't know what is inside until there are explosions." Secretive, enigmatic, like his poetry. Here's an excerpt of the poem titled, "The Volcano": Clothed in the high whistling of the winds, you remain motionless, gazing in silence through the window of time upon the shore of the skies. "What I am looking for is precisely what thing is that which gives meaning to everything. There has to be a seed of unity to everything, that gives meaning to everything, and that is precisely what I am looking for," Febres said. I had to ask him who his favorite poet was. Pablo Neruda (1904-1973), Chilean, and César Vallejo (1892-1938), Peruvian, he replied. Febres, 67, has dedicated his adult life to the study and teaching of literature but did not start to write poetry until he was in his 60s. He says he never thought about becoming a poet. Asked about his future work, Febres replies that he hasn't given it much thought. "What I would like to see in the world is less violence, more solidarity, more democracy, more responsibility. There can be no freedom without responsibility," he said. I asked him what a poet can do in a world of violence. "Act. Express his ideas," he replied. "So, explain to me again," I said, "What is it that makes us all poets?" His enigmatic answer surprised me, yet didn't: "To poetry there is no ugly thing, everything is beautiful ... We are all beautiful ... "From that point of view we are all poets, as though we tried to express through the word the beauty that we all ought to have, and to appreciate the beauty of others." The interview for this story was conducted in Spanish.A Spanish version of this story can be read at www.southbendtribune.com.Staff writer Pablo Ros: pros@sbtinfo.com (574) 235-6555